CAIPA and ILO Launch Landmark Training Series to Embed Decent Work Standards in Caribbean Investment Promotion

Bridgetown, Barbados - September 2026 The Caribbean Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (CAIPA) has launched a new three-part training partnership with the International Labour Organization (ILO), bringing together representatives from its 24 member countries to strengthen how the region links foreign direct investment (FDI) to job quality outcomes.

The first session, held virtually on September 29, focused on the ILO's Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, widely known as the MNE Declaration, an internationally recognized framework guiding governments, employers, and enterprises on how investment can generate not just jobs, but decent jobs. The series continues in October with a session assessing FDI's impact on decent work and key performance indicators and concludes in November with the development of practical roadmaps for the region.

Opening the session, Dr. Joni Musabayana, ILO Director for the Caribbean, underscored the strategic role IPAs play as the first point of contact for investors entering the region, noting that the impact of FDI "depends greatly on the environment around it" and calling on IPAs to help ensure investment delivers not only economic value, but decent work for Caribbean people.

CAIPA President Kay-Ann Greenidge, who also serves as CEO of Invest Barbados, framed the partnership as a turning point for how the region measures investment success:

“Across our region, IPAs have gotten better at tracking the basics, how much capital comes in, how many jobs come with it. But generally, we stop there. What we measure shapes what we prioritize. If our metrics stop at capital committed and jobs created, we will keep optimizing for exactly that. Our region faces one of the highest rates of outward migration and brain drain in the world, with many of our territories losing over 70% of their college-educated labor force to wealthier nations. CAIPA is ushering in a new period for this region, one where more and better jobs, not employment numbers alone, become the standard we hold ourselves and our investors to.”

The session also featured a practical industry perspective from Joel Alleyne, Chairman of Crucible International, a Barbados-based business process outsourcing firm, who shared how aligning company practice with the MNE Declaration's principles, including career pathways, safe working conditions, and strong labor-management relationships, has helped the firm build a "sought-after employer" reputation and sustain growth, including expanding headcount during the COVID-19 pandemic while competitors contracted.

CAIPA views this partnership with the ILO as central to its mission of ensuring that FDI strengthens, rather than bypasses, the Caribbean workforce, particularly in the strategic sectors of niche tourism, agritech, renewable energy, logistics, business process outsourcing, and blue economy, sectors that anchor the region's growth. By embedding decent work indicators into investment promotion practice, CAIPA and its member agencies aim to give Caribbean nationals a stronger case to build their futures at home.

The training series will conclude in November 2026 with the development of a regional roadmap for attracting investment that delivers more and better jobs across the Caribbean, alongside a suite of key performance indicators aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). These indicators will give IPAs a shared, practical tool to monitor and track their own performance on job quality, not just job quantity, as they court and manage investment going forward.